Posts Tagged pull ups

Accomplishing a Goal from Ann Wendel on Vimeo. I am proud to say that I have been getting strong! I set a goal for myself back in May that I would be able to get across the monkey bars at the playground (“You mean like this, Mom?” my 13 year old said as she easily went back and forth a few times……..) Yes, like that. Most of you know that I was a competitive swimmer for all of my growing up years, and even made the travel team as a freshman at a D1 school. I had a seriously strong upper body. I looked forward to the Presidential Physical Fitness Test every year, because I couldn’t wait to school almost everyone at the pull ups (except for you, Karl Torchia, because you were the man!) I could bang out at least 15 pull ups without breaking a sweat. So, it was a shock to me a few years ago when my kids started doing the monkey bars, and I jumped right up to show them how it was done, and couldn’t hold myself up on the bar. Uh-oh. I guess I had more important things to do, because I just never tried again. Until last spring. I was ready to commit to my goal. I started out slowly, just hanging on the bar. Then, I got to where I could do 1 or 2 rungs before I had to drop down. And I kept practicing all summer long, until I finally did it all the way across! Yea! And then I thought, well, maybe I can do chin ups, too. So I started working on chin ups (palms facing me). I began with negative chin ups, jumping up and then slowly lowering myself down, and progressed to one leg assisted […]